Oregon's public school class of 2013 turned in the worst performance on the math SAT of any class in the past 12 years, results released Wednesday night show.

The average mathscore of 517 marked a four-point drop from the previous year and a 12-point plunge from a peak score of 529 for the class of 2006.

State officials were at a loss to explain why Oregon's college-bound students who take the SAT have done progressively worse at math, particularly last year's graduates.

They still beat the national average, noted Crystal Greene, communications director for the Oregon Department of Education. Oregon's public school average remains far above the national public school average, which fell to 503 this year --but that Oregon average is only narrowly above the national average for all SAT-takers, 514.

SAT experts said the declining scores are a sign that more Oregon SAT-takers are getting through Algebra I and geometry without truly mastering the material and retaining it.

View full sizeDeeply understanding and remembering the basics of algebra will get you a long way toward doing well on the math SAT, experts say.Stephanie Yao Long / The Oregonian

One huge fan of the system, Forest Grove Chief Academic Officer John O'Neill, said grading students solely on math proficiency shows where the student has holes in knowledge, which helps those holes get filled.

"We were dismayed at the number of our graduates with very high grade averages who got low SAT scores and were put in remedial math" in college, he said. "So we really upped the rigor."

University system officials will look more closely at SAT math scores of in-state students and check for a link to more students struggling in college math, said Karen Marrongelle, interim vice chancellor for academic strategies.

"This is something I would want us to keep our eye on," she said. "We don't want to continue to see declines in the scores."

Compared to the national profile, Oregon's problem was not that its low-scoring students bombed the test but rather that too few students knocked it out of the park.

Only 5 percent of Oregon test-takers scored a 700 or better on the math section, which is scored on a scale of 200 to 800. Nationally, 7 percent of students scored that high. Oregon private school students snagged an outsize share of those high scores.

More than 15,700 public school students in Oregon's class of 2013 took the SAT, representing 45 percent of graduates, down a hair from the 46 percent tested in the class of 2012. An additional 2,000 Oregon students from private schools took the college-entrance exam.

Nationally, average scores in reading, writing and math were identical to last year's. Oregon's average SAT writing score also was flat, while the average reading score dropped 2 points, to its 2011 level.

Not doing well on the SAT math section is a sign that students have not completely mastered concepts covered in Algebra I, geometry and even lower levels of math, such as long division or multiplying fractions, SAT experts said.

Students can get extremely high SAT math scores without taking Algebra II or pre-calculus, but they can't score high if they have spotty or rusty mastery of basic algebra and geometry, said Mike McClenathan, author of "PWN the SAT: Math Guide," a book with keys to scoring high on the math SAT.

Oregon schools could be contributing to the problem of low SAT scores if, as seems to be the case, they're putting more eighth-graders into Algebra I, McClenathan said. When students take algebra that early, their most recent geometry course is typically two to three years in the rearview mirror when students take the SAT as juniors or seniors, leaving them rusty.

That isn't necessarily a real problem, he said, noting that it allows students to take a year or two of calculus in high school. "If you have more kids getting through calculus and getting As in calculus, that's a measure of math ability that the SAT doesn't capture at all," he said.

It is a problem, however, if students who start algebra in eighth grade finish their math requirements early and don't take math senior year, or if they take only three years of math for any reason, said Marrongelle, the interim vice chancellor.

"That's one of the places we have been trying to get the word out: Have students take four years of high school math. That gap year can really set you back," she said.

Brian Bills, a sought-after high-priced SAT coach in Lake Oswego, said he has found that students at many Oregon high schools get good grades in every math class and study calculus but don't do super-well on the SAT math section on the first try.

Giving points for completing homework or extra work, and putting an emphasis on simply repeating a math algorithm without understanding it can leave students with high grades but poor readiness, Bills said.

Among Oregon SAT-takers, 55 percent reported an A grade-point average, and 38 percent reported a B average. Yet many scored poorly on the SAT.

"If the goal is 'how do I get the good grade?' as opposed to 'how do I walk out understanding everything that I have to know?,' that's a problem," Bills said.